Uncommon Ground

Epistemology. What is it? Webster’s Collegiate Fifth, page 336—

“ the theory or science of the method and grounds of knowledge,

especially with a reference to its limits and validity.”

In other words, how you know what you know.

A couple of nights ago, I viewed a documentary on climate change, the geological speculations of Michael J. Oard . Historical climate change. Warm seas. Wet warm valleys. Cold, glaciated mountains. Millions of dead woolley mammoths, buried beside hippopotamii. Washington State’s Missoula Lake flood. Interesting ice age theories. Interesting stuff. Controversial stuff. How does he know what he says he knows?

Michael J. Oard, has a B.S. and M.S. degree in atmospheric science from the University of Washington. He was a research meteorologist for 6 years at the University of Washington. In 2001, he retired as a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in Great Falls, Montana.

As for myself, I grew up in Alberta, Canada. Cold, dry air winters were the norm. Maximum three feet of snow on the ground. Extreme temperature swings of 80 degrees were common, when arctic air was pushed aside by dry chinook winds from the west coast. Sidewalks with a ground temperature of -30 F built up a half inch of frost when air temps moved to +50F in a matter of two hours. Could this be called climate change? Three feet of snow was reduced to a half a foot in one day, and rivers of water flowed down sloping streets.

Then, the bitter cold came back with a vengeance, leaving streets and sidewalks a dangerous aggregation of frozen slush and lakes in various non-navigable patterns. The ground frost remained all winter to a depth of at least four feet. No one dug new foundations until the middle of May. Climate change! Yeah! Of sorts.

Our family moved to the West Coast 23 years ago. I love the mild winters where I can “play” in the dirt all year around. Granted, the gray, watery days keep things in perspective, but I love the ground here.

Uncommon ground. A very wise man once wrote, “Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house”.

What creates commerce? Markets? Need! Some would say, desire.

We live in an age of specialization. The great majority of people do not produce their own food. They have largely forsaken the field, the ground. Silly city people hug trees and finger shells and pretend food independence. For them, growing food is uncommon, something to preach about and regulate for others, but not to do.

Soil is relatively heavy to a man. Opening the soil for seed, whacking weeds, training vines, turning in amendments and fertilizers, digging out the precious fruits—this takes strong arms and backs.

Fossil fuels (and electrical power conversions) have made possible this detachment from the soil. In Washington State, significant water power has been harnessed as well. Wind and solar power is a dream that moves closer, but (grind your teeth if you wish), it is oil that puts food on our plates.

Uncommon ground. In 1994 we purchased five acres as a family playground and homestead. In 1999 we purchased four milking sheep. Our family has grown to nine, that is seven children. This is uncommon ground. I get asked if I am a Mormon or a Catholic. I am neither. We see children as a gift, the seed of the next generation, a legacy of hope, not something to be flushed down the toilet the morning after, like many other “Christians” of our day.

Uncommon ground. Sheep take work. Children helping is a win-win situation. We had to weather several learning curves at once. Fieldwork. Animal husbandry. Farm shelters. Milking skills. Cheese and yogurt making. Ice cream making was not so hard! We did this on the cheap. No bank loans. Seasons of waiting for cash to build up. Seasons of trying to orient to government health rules based on large, quick capital infusions. We wanted our children to see how businesses used to be started when grants and loans were not the norm. We have enjoyed not feeling the bite of the bank.

Uncommon ground. We took the time to relate our heritage to our “farm”. Have you ever read what the Bible says about farming? About sheep? About milk? The Bible is a big thing in our larger family circle. Maybe not yours. Probably not, especially if you are one of the privileged, “educated” class who eats what other people grow. (I do have a college degree). We love to contribute in our local church fellowship. We share our soil’s produce and our Bible insights there.

Uncommon ground. You may notice that I will post to Whatcom Works less frequently in days ahead. I am working on another website which will be called UnCommon Ground. Whatcom Works is supposed to be a local “Drudge” page for news and conservative commentary. Digging up and writing stories and aggregating news has to take a back seat to earning a living. I do not have EPA grants to allow me to watch other people all day as they grow my food.

But, it is the uncommon ground that holds the potential for the future. Political process and public policy spring out of the community of people in their given locale. Neighbors actually have a lot of uncommon ground. How can we come together? A lot of acceptance is needed. Patience. Negotiating. When uncommon worldviews mix without trust or giving, there are wars.

Uncommon ground. He who sits above the circle of the earth walked uncommon ground with men 2000 years ago. Christmas has roots. So does Easter, or Pasqua, or Passover. If you don’t like religion, don’t read our work at Uncommon Ground. But then, don’t brag about being a tolerant liberal.

Thanks for your time. Have a good Whatcom work day!

--- JK

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The Great Ice Age – Awesome Science Media

Michael J. Oard, B.S., M.S., University of Washington

You’re Invited To The Wedding!

Every now and then, it is good to take a break and do something different. Yesterday was that day. I went to a wedding—I mean, a daylong seminar on climate change and food production, sponsored by a consortium of local and regional marine, agriculture and geological agencies. The title, Recipe for Tomorrow: Climate Change and the Future of Food does have a special taste, doesn’t it? 
 

Have you ever been invited to a wedding? A strange wedding? Perhaps with customs imported from a foreign land or culture. You sit stiffly and smile, aware that what you see has meanings you cannot fathom. One or two of the hor’deurves looks good, and the rest look deadly. The music has a strange twang, and you can feel cautious eyes on your back. Welcome to the wedding!

Should there be a marriage of climate change and food production? Actually, this analogy was made during an afternoon panel yesterday, when several local farmers were explaining to a shocked moderator that climate change really was not a consideration for them. How could this be? What rock have they just crawled out from under? Embarrassed, one of the farmers made the point, “Coming here is like going to a very strange wedding.”

I am like the farmers. Our family has pasture, sheep, and an embryonic milking and creamery system. We make artisan cheese. When I tell people we are pay as you go, they nod knowingly. One day soon we hope to sell our cheese. But, from a distance, the climate change urgency seems to create more smoke than light.

I found this gathering very interesting. It got off to a rough start, with PowerPoint troubles. While the technicians fixed things, the moderator asked people to state their backgrounds. Of over one hundred participants, about ½ were agency staff or public planners, about ¼ were students, and of the rest, I counted four farmers, including me. This would be an interesting day.

One of my pet peeves is public policy changes hastily implemented, based on scientific studies that have not been peer reviewed and published. Often, the research had not been completed, and is legitimized with anecdotal consensus. Similar to this is perversion of the peer review process, such as the East Anglia IPCC “Climate-gate” debacle, where dissent over climate change models was (and continues to be) forcibly avoided.

The day was a mixed bag of fuzzy precautionism and focused reality. There were surprises, such as the story of tight consensus between the Chehalis tribe and the dairy farm community in the Chehalis valley and their proposal to build a large flood control dam on the upper river. When asked about the quality of agency input into their process, Dairy Federation President Jay Gordon gave a list of agency plan failures, from the early 1900’s right up to the proposed levees after the huge 2007 flood. Only when farmers and tribes began to drive the process together did trust build. Now, solid plans are being presented for federal funding.

It was worth my time to listen to shellfish and deepwater fish experts detail the marine biology problems they are seeing. But, as one panel member noted, land based food production is easy to monitor compared to underwater, marine food production. Full deep water marine monitoring takes very expensive boats and equipment, not always available to clamorous citizen activist tidal zone monitors. My question? Are the sea changes, the upwelling, the temperature and current changes abnormal? Or actually part of larger, several hundred year cycles we are just beginning to fathom. Lets not let social hyper-change agents spin an adolescent science as mature.

Craig Welch of the Seattle Times had great pictures and a chilling narrative if potential CO2 level lab trials are the norm. But—a big but—those lab test conditions do not yet exist in Puget Sound. Marriage to the precautionary principle skews reality and brings a gloomy dullness.

Most presenters were balanced. They qualified their claims carefully and left space for further discovery. There were some slips. When asked about the source of fecal coliform—human, farm animal or wildlife, longtime shellfish biologist Paul Williams said, “It does not matter—the shell fish are contaminated”. Well, it does matter—big time. If wildlife coliform is the contaminant, why prioritize mitigation on farm animal sites. As moderator Elizabeth Kilanowski followed up, “DNA coliform markers can point to the coliform source, but—those tests are very expensive.” So, should the farmer be penalized if the testing cannot be afforded by the monitoring or regulatory agency? Sounds like a shotgun wedding.

Interestingly, a presentation by Kirsten Feifel on PSP (Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning) made a strong case that shellfish toxic blooms are primarily influenced by water temperature and not by land based nutrients. And, since Bellingham Bay is a relatively warm spot in the Puget Sound…?

The voices seem to echo in my ears—“…those farmers… someone has to bear the shellfish problems. Maybe even, just skip the peer reviews and publishing. Just mandate 100 foot agricultural buffers on all streams and ditches—those rich farmers can afford to not farm some of their land to “help the world”.” It seems that shellfish toxicity has become an environmentalist sword just like eco-policy driven wetlands takings, that ongoing conflict between agency short course experts and credentialed hydro geologists.

Four farmers in a large room full of agency personnel and student observers. What is wrong with this picture?

Ever been to a stereotyped, fundamentalist, evangelical wedding? (Full disclosure: I serve on a church board and believe in Biblical inerrancy). Gospel notes in the wedding program remind the un-churched that they need to make a “right choice.” Standing in the receiving line, the question is popped, “Are you born again?” Eulogies to parents include swelling sentiments of pious gratitude and patriarchal obeisance.

Yesterday, I attended a fundamentalist, environmental wedding. Guests included scientists whose first love is discovery of the mechanisms of life, health and food delivery. There were the technicians who enable the research. There were the professors who unwrap the facts to the world, and the fishermen and tribal advocates. There were also the agency staffers who get paid to plan and manage, to write and enforce policy. It was a thoughtful, well planned, useful meeting.

But, I think, it is the “true believers” who keep the farmers away. The Carrie Nations types who pop up on the floor, crying, “Are you born again? Do you believe in climate change? Why have you not met your mother earth goddess yet? You should be ashamed of yourself. We’ll cast you (nasty teabaggers) out, that’s what we’ll do.” Then they sweep away with final, wild cries, “Population control! Urban growth areas and wildlands forever! Love mother earth! Sue ‘em at the Growth Management Hearings Board for everything they have!”

A double wedding. Two couples. Farmers and land climate change. Seafood gatherers and oceanic climate change.

Climate change is real. But, whose climate change? As the farmer panel declared, farmers deal with climate change every day. Hot and cold years. Wet and dry. Old pests and new pests. Again, as Chad Kruger,  director  of the WSU Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources noted, research is showing that decreased “redundancy” (as farms get bigger and fewer) is a more present threat to the food supply than currently well managed, in his opinion, climate change induced stressors (heat, moisture, pests…)

Maybe the climate change, shellfish focused, fighting fundies should see and bridge the culture gap with farms and farmers like they do so with the tribes. Then, the farmers might come to the wedding.                  -- JK

Shellfish Advocates Target Nutrients And Ignore Water Temperature Research

Tribal Business Takes UGA Land Away From The City Of Ferndale; Full Federal Trust Title Insurance Credential Not Confirmed.

The “Grand” Deception.

Too much outside funding. Too many planners. Too little local food.

An enterprising grass roots group stirred controversy a couple of days ago. Shoppers returning to their cars parked in the Lakeway Fred Meyer parking lot Saturday afternoon found a snappy advertisement mini-flyer sticky tabbed to their windshields, inviting them to a balloting party. Free food. A free concert. Local candidates on hand to help answer sticky questions. A group dance taking the ballots to the mail box.

Political activist reactions from glee to outrage to the un-politicized urge to simply litter have surely given way to deeper musings. Some one must have a fair bit of cash to throw away in a far away city on parties and short lived friendships. Why the carrots? What is the back game?

Strategies. Goals. Influence. “Almost buying” votes. PDC filing violations.

Facebook pages of political activists these days are crawling with posts, fearing, anticipating, trying to foresee the results of the election in eight days. “These are terrible people…” “I am afraid we have overplayed our hand…” “We need more government—vote for…” “We need less government—vote for…”

Strategies. Votes. Representative candidates. The raw struggle between an increasingly polarized Whatcom County electorate.

A stunningly short planning commission meeting this last week left Planning and Development Staff gasping for air as the Planning Commission tabled their recommended rule changes without so much as a presentation. Was the issue really procedural restraint to protect the appeal over the Growth Management Hearings Board arbitrary water ruling last summer? Was the issue the clarification of impervious surfaces language and regulations in the County Code? Or was the issue the contentious insertion of sweeping well drilling restrictions within the rule changes.

Strategies. Rules. Rulings. Legal wranglings. Environmental precedent settings. Property rights protections.

An article by Ed Kilduff in the fall Business Pulse magazine spotlights the enormously successful Washington Growth Management Act—if measured by the exponential increase in public planners and planner wannabee activists.

Strategies. 1989. Grants. 2013. Large transfers of decision making powers from local to regional, state and federal bodies. An awakening electorate fumbling for their pens and phones and car keys; sharing shock over the reality of gross government over reach, waste and freedom takings; rediscovering public meetings and challenging the swarms of environmental protectionists that hover in the halls of power.

This Thursday, Oct 31/13, food growers, buyers, activists—it’s open to the public—can attend a symposium entitled Recipe for Tomorrow: Climate Change and the Future of Food. A large of slate of presenters representing farm, science, education, tribal and government agencies does not increase my peace of mind. The sponsorship of hardline environmental groups such as ReSources only steels my resolve to probe deeply into—you guessed it—strategies.

Strategies. Climate Change. Pollution. Grants!!! Radical environmentalism grows as long as there are grants for staff projects. Planner jobs proliferate as long as there is grant money to plan. Precautionary environmental protectionism provides an inexhaustible seedplot of grant ready projects. This is a public planner’s heaven. Total job security. An October 24/13 Washington State Commerce Department e-mail advertises, (broader web page here)

”Departments of Ecology and Commerce are offering funding through a competitive grant program for projects that fit under one of the following themes:

“Eligibility: Local governments, federally-recognized tribal governments, and special purpose districts are eligible to apply for all themes. In addition, non-profit non-governmental organizations and academic institutions of higher education are eligible to apply for Theme 3.”

Strategies. People. Food shortages. Family food sustainability. If a man does not work plan, he should not eat.

Retired WWU professor Don Easterbrook has survived the recent gang mugging by current WWU non-climate change experts, and posted a scathing review of both the 2013 IPCC report on climate change and the Oct’13 National Geographic featurearticles on rising seas.

Strategies. Facts. Fears. Politicized science. Media and academic suppression of genuine debate. Free internet speech. Angry embarrassment. Protecting tenured teaching posts.

May I suggest that a much bigger problem than climate change is dependence on non-local food distribution systems. We don’t grow local. We don’t eat local. But, planners and scientists write grants local and do property takings local.

Strategies. Working. Growing with your own hands. Value added locally grown food must be economically sustainable. Farmers will not grow what does not pay. Environmental takings do not grow food. Public planner oversight armies do not grow food.

Strategies. Environmentalist lawsuits. Buying votes. Happy face farm/environment symposiums. Academic muggings. Grants to fuel environmental takings. As Pete Kremen recently said, “Whatcom County is under seige by regulations.” So—when the outside environmental grant money runs out?? When scientists are paid to solve farm to table problems instead of ramping up UN change agency environmentalist hot buttons?? Probably, only then will a reduced roster of public planners figure out how to encourage a simply regulated local marketplace that provides truly value added locally grown food. -- JK

• Balloting Party Flyer
• Whatcom County Planning Commission 10/24/13 – Audio
• Edkilduff: Success Of The Growth Management Act
• Birch Bay Watershed And Aquatic Resources Management District (Sub-Zone 1 Of Flood Control Zone) Invites The Public To “Climate And Change And The Future Of Food”
• Climate Change And The Future Of Food – Agenda 10-31-13
• EPA Grant Money Available Through WA DOE And WA COM
• IPCC Vs NIPCC: Whose Peer Reviewed Climate Change Conclusions Are Based On Facts?
• Don Easterbrook Challenges National Geographic Sensationalism Over Rising Sea Levels (Oct/13 Issue)

Money That Bites

Money. There has been much bluster about outside money in Whatcom County’s 2013 election. The early, high profile, aggressive entrance of environmentalist big bucks from Washington Conservation Voters, and the more recent and quieter arrival of free market big bucks from proponents of the Gateway Pacific Terminal have raised eyebrows everywhere in Whatcom County.

Today I learned of a larger proposed influx of outside money into Whatcom County, $300,000 from the Puget Sound Partnership to “develop a stakeholder process”, facilitating the planning stage of repairing flood control levees. $300,000 for a contractor/facilitator to do something different than campaign against or for a bulk shipping terminal. A larger sum. A very quiet entry. An agreement recommended to County Council for approval. The second coming of the failed WIT / public planner driven process. A mercenary gauntlet thrown down to mock and demoralize the volunteer stakeholder process of the resurrected WRIA 1 Water Planning Unit.

Recently, I saw an interesting infogram. An iceberg was floating in the water. Visible above the surface was a layer labelled “The Exciting Green Marketplace”. The first layer below the water was labelled “Usable Social and Environmental Disasters”. Below that was a layer with three community ideals: 1) Social Equity 2) Public/Private Economic Partnerships, and 3) Sustainable Ecology. Finally, at the bottom was the philosophical foundation layer: eradicate individualism, capitalism and free markets, and implement communitarian groupthink with big government control of everything.

Did you get that last mouthful? Did I lose you there? I hope not.

What will happen in Whatcom County after this election? What is going on under the cover of election noise? Tuesday, County Council is scheduled to look at bill AB2013-335. It is proposed that Whatcom County enter into an agreement to receive $300,000 via the Puget Sound Partnership, the Washington State Governor’s flagship regional non-elected board tasked with “cleaning up” Puget Sound, among other things. Puget Sound Partnership is a regional board. How clean is clean? Who knows? How can voters hold the PSP board locally accountable? Ensure cleanup or “flood control” standards that don’t shift at the ratcheting whim of communitarian puppet masters.

Regionalism. In 2012, Stanley Kurtz published a book entitled, “Spreading the Wealth: How Obama Is Robbing The Suburbs To Pay For The Cities.” An in depth researcher of community organizer infiltrations, Kurtz points out how unelected regional boards are the tool of choice to bring huge social change all across America.

Kurtz also brings to light a new network for White House community organizers. (Not a new network for UN based NGO Smart Growth activists). Traditionally, socialist community organizers have worked closely with liberal church groups to achieve their goals of inner city social upheaval. Recently, however, the newly minted agency Building One America (formed by leaders of the scandalized Gamaliel Foundation) has added a new social change sector—public sector employees sympathetic to the progressive goals of socialist community organizers. The Chicago-Alinsky molded friends of the Obama White house are noisily linking into the network quietly developed by the UN Smart Growth radicals. There will be more big government courting of local public planners. Liberal churches are passe.

In other words, in addition to religious social terrorists like Jeremiah Wright, the USA now will have public planner social terrorists to deal with. (Something Whatcom County has been dealing with for two decades—think multiple Resources lawsuits (Carl Weimer) and Futurewise and its unofficial first review privileges at the County Planning Department.  A key element of this movement is the shifting of governance from local elected councils to regional, appointed boards. Does this sound like Puget Sound Partnership? Kurtz’s book deals primarily with urban/suburban community tax base mingling. A few months ago, in a three part series of articles linked to in today’s news digest, Kurtz pointed out another critical mass development.

Students at Harvard recently “pressured” the administration to divest Harvard of the stocks of fossil fuel industry corporations. The uber progressive Harvard administration cheerily complied. Seattle mayor, Mike McGinn has also jumped on Bill McKibben’s bandwagon, instructing the city of Seattle to avoid holding these stocks as of now. Gas and oil stocks are hot commodities, and such actions will really do little to harm these corporations at this point.

BUT—and this is important, a generation of college students are practicing “killing”, imagining the death of industrialized society—studying fossil fuel stock divestment on their i-pads, texting about it on their i-phones, and dreaming about it while flitting about in their parents’ Toyota Prius cars—industrial enabled conveniences. At some point, “the mother of all dialectic struggles” will begin, and the industrial complex will be carved up and redistributed by a matured generation of millenials.

I finish with a nod to another recently released book, “This Town”, by veteran DC reporter Mark Liebovich. “This Town” humorously and cynically profiles the “Beltway Club”, bloated by both Republican and Democrat lobbyists, making fabulously huge salaries in K Street offices on the backs of tax payers. Has K Street come to Whatcom County in the form of PSP funded facilitators? Is the end of local volunteer government at hand?

Am I cynical? Yes. Is there a path through all this? Yes. “Let him that stole steal no more, but rather, let him work with his hands, that he may have to give to him who has need.” Will you or I learn to work and share from public planners whose environmentalist consultant/facilitator friends feed off planning grants from Puget Sound Partnership? Probably not. Could we learn to work under the tutelage of outside fossil fuel interests running at an environmentally sound bulk shipping terminal at Cherry Point? That would be more probable.

Even better, learn the ropes and start your own business. Avoid the philosopher king urge to “kill the masters” that give us lights and communications and wheels and wings. Question the establishment environmentalists. And, learn to appeal regional board grant driven power grabs. In the event of failed appeal, graciously hold your nose and work the bridges. Remember the hidden hand. All hard work brings a benefit.

And, please vote. Vote for candidates who will deprioritize the group think zoned high density urban globalist university talking head enclaves. Vote for candidates who will support work ethic building clean heavy industry and the sweat of the brow value added agricultural farmer (not just farmerless Ag land). Vote for the choice to work local and live local—in the whole county, not just in Bellingham. --JK

Candidates Who Support Farmer Sustainable Value Added Agriculture

The New Peasant Farming Communes Of Global Warming Prophet Bill Mckibben. To Get There? Divest Now Of Fossil Fuel Stocks.

City Of Seattle Blacklists Energy Stocks

$300,000 Grant Through PSP For Whatcom County Flood Control Planning. Should Big Money Legitimize A Regional, Unelected,Environmentalist Board?

Mark Leibovich Unmasks The D.C. Beltway Lobbyist Culture In This Town. Does Whatcom County Have A Consultant/Lobbyist Problem?

The Science is Never Settled!

The faithful followers of the Church of Global Human Caused Climate Chaos (CGHCCC) keep repeating the mantra, "the science is settled!" Of course they need to keep their dogma nailed down, and people who question it (deniers and heretics) must be isolated, persecuted and ridiculed. True science - the pursuit of knowledge and objective truth - is based on the opposite of dogma. It only works when healthy skepticism rules the day. This is anathematic to someone who prefers to promote an agenda...

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